Available from the View menu, the Picture Browser option opens a dockable pane which can be used to draw pictures on diagrams.

The last folder accessed is remembered and is presented if available.

In the normal mode of operation, you select a file to get a preview of it in the diagram Preview window and trigger picture drawing mode using the file as a referenced image.

The picture browser can show a grid of images instead of a list of filenames, as controlled by the Grid checkbox. This setting is remembered and the initial default is ticked.

When presenting images there is a delay while images are loaded but the processing is done in the background so users can quickly scroll the grid to find the desired image and the images will continue to load when allowed to do so. The preview pane or diagram preview window will update more quickly. Images out of view are not kept in memory so as to keep the memory requirement of the application to a minimum.

For both presentation modes there is a selection indicator that can be moved with the cursor and Page Up and Page Down keys when the grid or list control has focus. The grid control has a dotted border when it has focus. The list can show a dotted region around the currently selected item.

The user can specify the size of the created symbol when creating a picture referencing the chosen source image. These controls are hidden when not applicable.

There is a splitter bar at the bottom of the window which you can drag up. Having done so, selecting a file will present the preview image there instead of updating the Diagram Preview pane. The position of this splitter is remembered.

A number of filter options are offered. You must press the Refresh button after updating the filter controls to update the list of images.

You can drop down a check-list of the located file extensions which System Architect supports as pictures by pressing the down-arrow to the right of the Pick extensions label.

The Name box offers a contains-type search.

The folder drop-list contains all located encyclopedia folders and offers a folder-based search.

The external folders accessed are remembered in the ini entry [User Interface]PicBrowFolders and are loaded in that sequence following the encyclopedia’s own folders. If the browser is opened with the default of an external folder, the encyclopedia folders are added as soon as one of the standard encyclopedia folders is refreshed.

Pressing the ... button opens a file selection dialog where a folder can be selected after opening it, when there is no folder or file selection. This also allows the typing of a path to locate a folder.

After selecting a folder, that directory is selected and is available in the Folder drop-list. This is the view after pressing Refresh:

With Reference ticked, selecting a file will cause picture drawing mode to be entered with the file as a reference.

Unticking the Reference box means that the user will be prompted on pressing Add, as if the file had been dropped onto the diagram after dragging it from the Windows folder.

Copying creates a unique P-prefixed image folder in the root encyclopedia folder for each picture placed on the diagram from the chosen file. Import imports the file.

As normal in Windows applications, you can switch keyboard focus by using the Tab and Shift+Tab key combinations.

After moving focus to the Pick extensions button and pressing Space, the list will drop-down but you need to use the cursor-down key to move focus to items in the list before you can press Space to toggle selections, or press Escape to close the list.